Per my post above, I would not recommend the SP4 for lap use. It's great on a table, but just not comfortable on the couch.

On reliability, I opened a post some months back urging people not to buy the SP4 due to unreliable performance. I'm pleased to say that, following numerous firmware updates, the last few months have been issue free, so it looks like MS have got on top of their SP software issues (though it took them long enough).

Except my pen. :(

I've never used the pen, on either my previous SP3 Pro or my current SP4 Pro.

I use my pen all the time. I am company director and get lots of .pdf/s to read and mark up etc. I use the built in program 'Drawboard PDF' - I find it brilliant for making notes on the documents, highlighting, rotating and lots more.

I owned my Surface 4 for at least a year trying out several .pdf readers until I discovered I already had Drawboard pre-installed.

I use the pen for navigating most of the time instead of my 'fat' finger.

My surface is the i5, 8gb model and i've had no issues at all with it - it's just great for reading my magazines and newspapers on - love it to bits!

I use my pen all the time. I am company director and get lots of .pdf/s to read and mark up etc. I use the built in program 'Drawboard PDF' - I find it brilliant for making notes on the documents, highlighting, rotating and lots more.

I owned my Surface 4 for at least a year trying out several .pdf readers until I discovered I already had Drawboard pre-installed.

I use the pen for navigating most of the time instead of my 'fat' finger.

My surface is the i5, 8gb model and i've had no issues at all with it - it's just great for reading my magazines and newspapers on - love it to bits!

Thanks, just had a look at drawboard, so will give it a trial.

Problem for me is that for the duration of my working day, the SP4 is connected to dual monitors via dock, so this restricts my ability to use the pen for PDFs etc, but I will see how I go.

I'll also have a crack at using it for navigating, see how I go.

One question for pen users - do you find that the pen magnet is strong enough to hold the pen to the screen when transporting the SP4, or does it get pulled off inside bags etc?

I use my pen all the time. I am company director and get lots of .pdf/s to read and mark up etc. I use the built in program 'Drawboard PDF' - I find it brilliant for making notes on the documents, highlighting, rotating and lots more.

I owned my Surface 4 for at least a year trying out several .pdf readers until I discovered I already had Drawboard pre-installed.

I use the pen for navigating most of the time instead of my 'fat' finger.

My surface is the i5, 8gb model and i've had no issues at all with it - it's just great for reading my magazines and newspapers on - love it to bits!

Thanks, just had a look at drawboard, so will give it a trial.

Problem for me is that for the duration of my working day, the SP4 is connected to dual monitors via dock, so this restricts my ability to use the pen for PDFs etc, but I will see how I go.

I'll also have a crack at using it for navigating, see how I go.

One question for pen users - do you find that the pen magnet is strong enough to hold the pen to the screen when transporting the SP4, or does it get pulled off inside bags etc?

i5, 8Gig, I used the pen (past tense) as a mouse substitute for everything - navigating, playing solitaire, photoshop, web browsing to onenote but had to give up because of the problems with it. I was hoping to use it to draw with.

I gave up on the pen being 100% useful and use a mouse now but lately I haven't had much choice as I am drawing digitally again so I've been making due with it despite the problems. The program I'm using with the pen makes no darn difference, it does it with anything and also does it with a reset of the Surface. It also does it with two other Surface pens I tried. So I gave up trying to fix it. But I am going to keep moaning about it because it really p--- me off!

I clip mine onto the top of the case in the provided slot. It's never fallen off there but if you just hitched it on with the magnet I think it might if it's getting bumped around much in your bag.

So I pulled the trigger on two Core M SP4s (4GB/128GB). Spent this afternoon setting them up. I must say the display is gorgeous and I almost wish I had got one for myself as well!So the next question is to do with MS Office for them both. We are currently using Office 2010 on all our PCs but it appears that to get the most out of the Pen particularly, a new version of the programs may be required. I have seen MSO 2016 retailing for $195 per PC or MSO365 University which is $145 per PC for a 4 year licence. Does anyone have any comment on what would work best with the surface? Are there any other essential apps for study besides the ones mentioned earlier in the thread?

Drawboard is not a full app. It does everything I ask of it for reading, rotating and annotating however for $38.50 (I assume USD) per year it can be upgraded to enable the insertion of pages etc so I suppose it depends on what a user needs.

Slightly OT, but surely the next gen of the Surface Pro shouldn't be too far away? I would wait a bit and see before purchasing anything.

That was my assumption due to the discounting going on at the moment. However, just as in any new gen devices, they will charge a premium initially, which puts the SP5 out of my price range. Rumour has it that the Surface Book is no longer going to be a convertible, but a standard clamshell.